How should designers think to get incredible results?
If you look anywhere on the internet, you will find this concept of Design Thinking: Design Thinking is a method to generate innovative ideas that focuses its effectiveness on understanding and solving any need of different users. This term comes from the way designers work.
This method is divided into 5 stages:
1- Empathy Phase: The Design Thinking process begins with a deep understanding of the needs of the users involved in the solution we are developing, and also of their environment. People in general, clients, employees, etc. We must be able to put ourselves in the shoes of these people to be able to generate solutions consistent with their realities. Techniques: Interviews - Observation or shadowing - People - Empathy map - Actors map - Focus group - Storytelling - Desk research - Analogies - SWOT - The QCP questionnaire - Business model canvas - Benchmarking. 2- Definition Phase: During the Definition phase, we must sift through the information collected during the Empathy phase and keep what really adds value and brings us to the scope of new interesting perspectives. We will identify problems whose solutions will be key to obtaining an innovative result. Techniques: Cognitive Immersion - Customer Experience or Customer Journey Map - Customer Attraction Map - Affinity Diagram - How Could We ...? (How Might We) - Stakeholder Mapping - Context Maps - Red and Green Cards - Ishikawa Diagram - Interviews with Photos - 2x2 Matrix - Moodboards - Mind Map - Define the problem. Define Your Point Of View (POV).
3- Ideation Phase: The Ideation stage or phase aims to generate endless options. We should not be left with the first idea that occurs to us. In this phase, activities favor expansive thinking and we must eliminate value judgments. Sometimes the most outlandish ideas are the ones that generate visionary solutions. Techniques: The 6 hats (6 thinking hats) - Brainstorm - Brainwriting - Braindump - Brainwalk - Scenarios - Worst Possible Idea - Challenge Assumptions- Storyboard Bodystorming - Sketch or Drawstorming - SCAMPER - Decision Matrix - Co-Creation. 4- Prototyping Phase: In the Prototyping stage we make ideas come true. Building prototypes makes ideas tangible and helps us visualize possible solutions. In addition, it highlights elements that we must improve, refine or change before reaching the final result. Techniques: Storyboard - Paper prototyping - Storytelling - Prototype with Legos - MockUp - Wireframe - Cardboard model - 3D modeling - Infographics - 3D printing - Business model - Blueprint - Any support that models the solution. 5- Testing Phase: During the Testing phase, we will test our prototypes with the users involved in the solution we are developing. This phase is crucial, and it will help us to identify significant improvements, faults to be solved, possible shortcomings ... During this phase we will evolve our idea until it becomes the solution we were looking for. Techniques: Prototype test plan - Questionnaires - Qualitative interview - User test - Focus group - My turn - Usability testing - Role-Playing - Wizard of Oz Experiment - User-Driven Prototype. So far everything in order, right?
The BIG PROBLEM of regular Design Thinking
The regular Design Thinking has suffered over the years. Not because their approach is wrong, far from it. It has suffered a lot because times have changed and the ways of investigating and solving a problem have evolved.
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These are its main problems:
- Design Thinking is being reduced to providing digital or computer solutions. We must remember that it is a method in which we cannot reduce the range of results. - Design Thinking does not make you innovative, however it helps, it does not produce innovations, but it helps ideation, not to create, and it is not facilitated by innovators but must be executed by expert non-instrumentalist facilitators. -Leaders must know how to get involved in Design Thinking, it is not about trying a new organizational tool, but it is a way of working that involves them and modifies their conception of organizational work and teamwork. - Design Thinking must be designed as a process, and not repeat standard models. The IDEO model is for a certain type of process. - This method is purely qualitative. To obtain adequate results, different processes must be implemented to validate, analyze and test the information in a timely manner.
Epic Design Thinking
This approach to Design Thinking proposed in AX Studios says the following: For Design Thinking to be really effective, it needs certain factors that enrich the innovative process.
What could they be and what stages should be added?
First of all, we must take advantage of all the tools available in our environment. From "Big Data" databases to investigations carried out by private entities. This can enrich our Design Thinking process. Phases that could be added to regular Design Thinking to turn it into Epic Design Thinking would be:
- Contrast Phase: The purpose of the Contrast stage or phase is to contrast the data obtained in the Ideation stage with information available in investigations of said niche. In the absence of relevant research, an expert facilitator in that specific area should be consulted. - Cross Tools Phase: In the Cross Tools (CT) stage, quantitative and qualitative tools or methodologies must be applied to the process. That is, it takes various data that enrich the innovative research of Design Thinking. More than a new phase, it is proposed to expand the research spectrum that Design Thinking currently has.
To have epic results you need equally epic processes. That is why you should not hesitate to contact us to obtain the best possible results with our digital strategies WORTHY OF THE GODS.